About this Bill Dixon 80'

TIGA BELAS is a very comfortable, easy to handle, safe and well performing sailing sloop.

Designed by Bill Dixon Yacht Design Studio, built by Austral Yachts in 2001, the beautiful 24 metre deck-saloon sailing yacht TIGA BELAS features a classic appearance and beautiful sheer lines.

The idea was to create an uncompromisingly comfortable, easy to handle, safe and well performing sloop of the highest standard in respect to construction, materials and equipment.

Consequently an extremely rigid hull construction was chosen.

The vessel is easy to manoeuvre in marinas virtue of her variable controllable pitch propeller and the 45 hp Bowthruster.

Cruising speed at economical consumption is around 8 knots and 2,600 litres of fuel (in 4 tanks) give an approx. range under engine of about 1,000 nautical miles excluding generator consumption.

Sailing the yacht is pleasure. The mainsail, which is operated by the Leisure Furl patented carbon boom, can be hoisted hydraulically either by 24v battery power (in light conditions) or by a power take off connected to the main engine in a matter of 1.5 minutes only. The fully battened sail with a considerable roach gives an excellent shape even when reefed. Reefing is merely a matter of pushing a button.

The Genoa, (also furled by the push of a button), just like the self-tacking staysail, are efficient and easily managed sails.

Construction

Hull, Deck & Superstructure Construction:

TIGA BELAS has an extremely rigid hull construction with a 45 mm red cedar core and multiple inner and outer layer of epoxy GRP was chosen. The outer layer was additionally fitted with 1.5 layers of Kevlar for improved impact resistance. Structural members such as keelson, engine beds and mast step were constructed in solid mahogany and epoxy GRP coated.

Deck joinery: The fore-deck, side and aft decks, pilothouse and cockpit floors and aft bridge deck are covered with teak planking (which was of 15 mm thickness when new).

Hydraulic, twin helm pumps drive two unbalanced rams. System supplied by Gerhard Seegers. The system gives about 4.5 turns lock to lock. Full rudder arc 70 degrees. Rams are cross-connected and valved, so that in case of one ram failure, the yacht can run on the other ram alone for emergency. Safety and bypass valves are fitted.

Emergency steering by lever onto square on top of rudderstock. Tiller connected to control lines, which are led to both primary winches.

Rudder blade fully balanced, glassed over foam with E-glass and Kevlar, stainless steel reinforced. Rudderstock solid stainless steel of 110 mm diameter (rudder was extended at some stage by a former owner - documentation available on request; regarding the safety of this change).

Plumbing Systems

There are 6 bilge compartments using a manifold with 2 main bilge pumps, one electric and the other hydraulically driven, each with a capacity of 300 litres per minute

Manual Whale gusher pump with a capacity of 25 litres a minute is installed in the cockpit.

5 nuisance water pumps will discharge smaller quantities of water from the respective areas

Main bilge pumps are used as fire fighting pumps through special piping system

Tankage:

All tanks are manufactured from 3mm stainless steel and are mounted on soft supports and strapped down. All tanks have been pressure tested to 0.3 bar, in excess of what is required under classification rules.

Fuel pipe work is manufactured of stainless rigid piping up to 1” and above that of nitrile lined rubber to classification standard. In the engine room all fuel lines are made of stainless steel.

Pipe work for water is made of Class approved PVC.

All tanks are provided with Kuebler level indicator gauges, connected to synoptic panels and alarms.

Domestic Equipment

2 Refrigerators, custom made in stainless steel, front loaded, appropriately divided and 1 Refrigerator, custom made in stainless steel, incorporated in the cockpit table and 1 Freezer, custom made in stainless steel, front loaded, divided with slide out drawers.

Icemaker, 220 V AC, self-contained.

All refrigerators and the Freezer (except the Icemaker) are operated by 6 Frigomatic K DC compressors.

Heads/Showers:

A deck shower is installed on the aft deck.

4 x Superflush Prestige toilets 2002. Flushing is by fresh water into stainless steel black water holding tanks, which can only be discharged by manual activation for environmental reasons. Crew toilet is of same technical characteristics but for size reasons made by Sunny Marine.

Holding tanks are fitted with level switches, which send audio and visual signals to the main alarm panel.

Total capacity is 45,000 B.T.U. per hour, for both cooling and heating. 51 running amps are required at 230v

Entertainment:

CD in each cabin.

DVD – CD player in saloon.

Speakers in cockpit.

Lighting:

Just behind the Rudder about 1 foot under waterline there are 2 underwater lights (port and starboard) have been installed.

The lights are switchable from the port helm station.

Accommodation

Summary of Accommodation:

The classically-styled interior is tasteful and is executed in American Cherry wood.

The upper salon is a comfortable area, perfect for enjoying the surrounding environment while under sail (new pale leather upholstery fitted 2016).

The lower or dining saloon offers a comfortable space to read, entertain friends or dine in style.

The hull ports are manufactured by Van Wingerden in stainless steel and fitted with storm blinds (note: storm blinds are onboard but not for every port hole).

Description of layout:

TIGA BELAS comfortably accommodates up to 8 guests in 3 staterooms.

All the guest staterooms include first class amenities, individually controlled audio systems and air-conditioning and en-suite facilities.

The luxurious master stateroom with king sized berth and 2 en-suite heads compartments

The 2 guest cabins have double berths and en-suite bathrooms. Each guest cabin has also a Pullman berth.

Crew:

The crew area is separated from the guest cabins and is located forward of the saloon.

Workshop:

The Workshop is located in the most forward compartment of the yacht and is fully fitted with tools, nuts and bolts, spare electrical and plumbing items, as is required on a yacht this size. All tools are in dedicated positions, as are the spares, for the ease of finding the required tool/spare.

Spars And Rigging

Rig:

Spars manufactured by: Marten Spars Ltd., Auckland, New Zealand.

Mast and Boom are made of carbon fibre.

Boom is manufactured under Leisure-Furl license for mainsail stowage and reefing.

Mast has 4 swept back spreaders (carbon fibre).

Boom has integral custom-made sunshade systems.

Mast and Boom have integrated mast and cockpit illumination systems.

Standing rigging by Riggarna, stainless steel 316 Rods (8 year service done in 2015 when the rigging was sent to Denmark for complete overhaul).